Tuesday, 26 October 2010

Nicotine Clegg

Josie Appleton at Spiked has been writing about the Spanish who, like the Greeks, are not taking a "comprehensive" smoking ban lying down. Considering the dire economic conditions in both countries, the decision to spend so much time and money hassling smokers seems puzzling. As Josie says, it reflects the warped priorities of the political class:

The smoking ban springs from elite rather than popular concerns. It’s not because the Spanish elite doesn’t like smoking: prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was recently caught smoking on his presidential jet.

Yes, it's another political leader who (whisper it) smokes cigarettes. Another do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do politico to line up alongside Barack Obama and Nick Clegg. Reading the Dubai edition of The Sunday Times yesterday morning as I trailed back to the Sussex Riviera alongside the knackered commuters, I found Nick Clegg's fondness for an occasional tab on the front page. Even if this wasn't already common knowledge (which I thought it was), who cares?

The answer, as Newsnight found when they asked people on the street yesterday, is nobody. But the fact that the media and the political class think that anyone would, should or could be interested rather proves Josie's point about the divide between the norms of the elite and the norms of, er, normal folk.

The elite view is that smoking is finished, denormalised and is now the preserve of a tiny handful of addicts. This fantasy can just about be maintained by people working in the upper echelons of public health. Very few, if any, of their colleagues smoke and it is hard to imagine them consorting with smokers in their spare time. In their neverland of conferencing and seminars, their Walter Mitty fantasies are rarely challenged by the clunking fist of reality.

Such an option is not open to journalists and politicians. Smoking remains very common amongst hacks, and even politicians are sometimes forced to encounter the general public from time to time. For them to believe that the world changed on July 1 2007 requires a level of self-delusion that approaches cognitive dissonance. It is as if by willing society to change, it will do so, even as one's own colleagues, friends and leaders continue to puff away.

And if smoking is imagined to be no longer normal, then it must therefore be remarkable to find that someone is a smoker, right?

Wrong. For all the nudging and denormalising, it is civil society that ultimately decides what is normal behaviour. Outside of the public health bubble, the conduct of a quarter of the population cannot sensibly be viewed deviant, unusual or even interesting. And so it isn't. As has been the case for five centuries, all but a handful of people are profoundly indifferent to smoking. They are also—as it happens—supremely uninterested in whoever is leader of the Liberal Democrats. It should hardly be surprising, then, that the "revelation" that the leader of the Liberal Democrats occasionally smokes was greeted with a jaw-breaking yawn.

"The elite view is that smoking is finished, denormalised and is now the preserve of a tiny handful of addicts. This fantasy can just about be maintained by people working in the upper echelons of public health. Very few, if any, of their colleagues smoke and it is hard to imagine them consorting with smokers in their spare time. In their neverland of conferencing and seminars, their Walter Mitty fantasies are rarely challenged by the clunking fist of reality."

The above paragraph reminded me of something. Besides being addicted to nicotine, red wine and good blogs, I am also addicted to 'auction' programmes like 'Flogit' and 'Bargain Hunt'.

Presenters and experts on these programmes also seem to live in this fantasy world. Whenever they are presented with an old tobacco tin or cigarette case, without exception someone will say, "people don't like this sort of thing anymore". Without exception however, they always sell way above the estimate, and the valuers are open mouthed.

The best comment from a valuer though, on live television, recently was, "people don't smoke anymore".

About Me

Writer and researcher at the Institute of Economic Affairs. Blogging in a personal capacity.
Author of Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism (2015), The Art of Suppression (2011), The Spirit Level Delusion (2010) and Velvet Glove, Iron Fist (2009).

Elsewhere

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."